


On the Other Side

by LunaoftheLid



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-01-16 03:26:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18512938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaoftheLid/pseuds/LunaoftheLid
Summary: Quentin Coldwater walks through a door.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am trying to give myself a little catharsis. And I am so tired of pain being used as a placeholder for realism.
> 
> I did post this without much editing, so if you catch anything, feel free to let me know.
> 
> Note: I tagged Quentin/Eliot because that's the relationship I want to explore, but it should I muster the emotional energy to continue this, it's going to take us a bit to get there.

Quentin Coldwater walked through the door. His metro card was clutched right in his hand (only he would have anxiety about losing his ticket to move on in the underworld) but he came to an abrupt halt when he didn’t see the expected track or station. Instead, an expanse of wild and lush greenery spread out before him. He had never been in this exact location, but as he took in a deep breath, recognition seeped into his bones. He knew this place.

 

“Quentin Coldwater.”

 

The White Lady stood to his right.

 

“I-” He ran a hand through his hair and stared. “I—uh—didn’t really expect this.”

 

She didn’t quite smile, but there was the expectation of one. “Familiarity is a benefit for occasions such as these.”

 

Quentin crossed his arms and tilted his head. “You mean dying? Because I’ve already done the reflecting on my life bit. I said goodbye,” and here his throat seized, clutching against the threat of tears, “I said goodbye to the people I cared about. I’m ready to move on.”

She stood in place, her face still and void of expression. “Are you?”

 

“Are you saying there’s another option? I didn’t really get that impression.” He started to pace back and forth. “I mean, sure, you can spend your life thinking that maybe it would be a relief for everything to just stop, but as it turns out, there really isn’t the relief you think there is. You don’t stop caring about the people you left behind. I can live with not living based on thought that I didn’t give up and I was brave and I could help save them but—”

 

He paused. She didn’t say anything. Quentin took a long, shaky breath and wished for cards or a coin to keep his hands occupied. “But if I could, I’d live. For them. But also for me. Turns out there’s a lot I still wanted to do. A lot of life to live and I spent my time up there never realizing it.”

 

“Well then.” She made a beckoning gesture with one hand. “Your card.”

 

“What?”

 

“Your card, Quentin Coldwater. You’re not going to find much use for it during your journey back to your friends.”

 

“B-back?” He stumbled forward even as he spoke and the card slipped in his grip, leaving a thin paper cut on his palm.

 

The White Lady neatly pulled the card from his hand. “It will not be an easy journey but I suspect you know this.” She stepped to one side and revealed a path that wound on behind her. “I advise you stay on the path.”

He took a slow, hesitating step onto the dirt road, shooting repeated glances back on her direction. Just as he stopped looking she spoke up once more.

 

“King Quentin.” There was definitely a smile on her face now. “You may encounter some familiar faces on your journey. Your friends do not strike me as the type to be content with waiting. Accept their help when it’s offered.”

She then vanished from view. Quentin took the time to bend over, taking in deep, gasping breaths and clutching at his chest.

 

“Fuck. Oh FUCK.”

 

Time passed. He didn’t know how much. But eventually he straightened and took in the path before him.

 

“Be brave,” said Quentin Coldwater, magician. Quentin the Moderately Socially Maladjusted, to fool, the questor, the husband, the father. He laughed to himself and thought, The-Boy-Who-Loved.

 

“Be brave,” he said, and took the first step forward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise a painless journey, but I hope you'll stick with me on it. I'm hoping for at least a good kind of pain. And I have no interest in pain without relief.

At first the only things he could see were the sky and the plant life, ever-fixed, without even the slightest wind or weather to move them. There were no animals in this underworld facsimile of Fillory, talking or otherwise. Quentin found himself wishing for the White Lady to come back, if only to give him someone to talk to. He made an attempt to find out if some of the nearby shrubbery fancied small talk, but this proved unsuccessful. Just as well. He’d always been bad at small talk. That was probably the reason Eliot had been more suited to be chosen for high king.

Oh. Ouch. Apparently even thinking about the people he loved was physically painful down here. Q rubbed the palm with the paper cut (his right) against his sternum, unable to tell where exactly the burning sensation was originating from. He took a second to frown at the cut. It was a little weird that he managed to acquire it while he didn’t technically have a body to injure. It wasn’t actively bleeding. It was just a small stretch of red that cut through the lines on his palm. Actually, if his memory from Julia’s palm reading phase were correct, the interrupted lines were his life and fate lines. Of course thinking of Julia set off another round of burning, and distracted him so thoroughly he nearly threw himself off the path to keep from running headfirst into the obstacle that had appeared in the center of it.

“What the—”

The sound of his voice seemed overly loud in the unnatural silence. Q paused until his brain could make sense of what he was seeing.

In the middle of the path stood another door. He had a moment of panic thinking _oh god it’s another trick_ and _was I supposed to learn some sort of fucked up lesson about accepting my fate_ until he realized that it wasn’t the same door he had come through when he first arrived. This one was familiar. After a moment he realized it was the door to ~~Marina’s~~ Kady’s apartment. Quentin stared down at the path. It clearly led to this door, with no obvious diversion around it.

“Well. Okay then.” He pushed it open.

As he stepped into the entryway, he spotted a familiar head of brown hair.

“Julia!” The name was ripped from his throat (where did the burn go?) and he ran forward, leaping over the back of the couch to land beside her.

His hands went right through her. She looked up for a second when he tried to rest his right hand on her shoulder, but gave her head a slight shake and turned back to the book in her lap.

“Jules.”

His voice was so much softer the second time he called her name. She was beautiful, had always been so beautiful inside and out, but her hair was frizzed and thrown up in a haphazard ponytail. There were dark circles under her eyes and indentations in her bottom lip, like she had been constantly chewing on it.

“I know I’m probably the last person who should be saying this kind of thing,” and at this, he reached out to tenderly touch her cheek, “but based on the way you’re looking, Jules, I’m thinking you picked the human option. And I think, based on very personal experience I might add, you’re going to need to focus on the part where you eat and sleep.”

Of course she didn’t respond. Just a moment later, however, she looked up as Penny-23 entered the room.

“I’m beginning to regret asking you. About what you’re going to do now that you have magic again, I mean.”

“Yeah, well, ask a stupid question.” She motioned to the pile of books he carried in his arms. “Did you find the right ones?”

“I found them.” He let the pile fall heavily onto the couch cushions. “Had to get a little aggressive. People are going crazy trying out spells now that ambient is back up.”

“I can’t blame them.” She carefully placed a bookmark in the book on her lap before turning the candle sitting on the side table. With a few precise tuts the wick burst into flame. Then she looked down at her fingers. Q felt a lump form in his throat as familiar sparks flew off of them.

“He was such an asshole, you know, when he first got into Brakebills. He called this spell a party trick when I was trying to convince him that I was meant to be there too. But I wasn’t innocent either. We were pretty awful to each other.” She brought both hands up to cover her face.

Penny-23 carefully moved the books so that he could sit down beside her. He grabbed her hands with his own, pulling them down until the tear tracks streaking down her face were revealed. “I really can’t picture you being awful to anyone.”

She shook her head with a small smile. “I’m glad you weren’t there to see it. But the worse part is that after—after all of the bullshit, we were finally supposed to be on the same page.” Her face crumpled and she turned to look up at the ceiling. “You hear that, Q? We were going to finally explore all of Fillory. We were going to do magic. Together!”

“ _Julia_.” He reached out again but it was as futile as his first attempt.

She leaned forward into Penny-23’s embrace and he just barely heard the next part over her sobs. “If I have to pull down the Old Gods from wherever they’re hiding to get him back, I will. And then I’ll make him do the stupid spark spell until his fingers are numb.”

His hand started to burn and so Quentin looked up. The door to the living room balcony no longer showed a city skyline. Instead, he could see the continuation of the forest path just outside. He hesitated, turning back to Julia, but the burn intensified.

“Okay!” He leapt up from the couch. “I’m going! I’m going!” He pulled the balcony door open. Then he paused. “I’ll do it, Jules. I swear. If—when I get back we’ll do your spark spell until both our fingers are numb and then we’ll go to Fillory and ride the Cozy Horse until our legs are numb too.” A wet laugh escaped him. “Gotta make sure our Fillory map is up to date.”

Q gave her one last lingering look, lips pressed together tightly to prevent them from trembling. Then he turned, letting the door slam shut behind him. The path stretched out long ahead of him and he had promises to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And miles to go before I sleep  
> And miles to go before I sleep
> 
> I did not expect Robert Frost to sneak up into my fanfic writing.  
> As always, if you see any mistakes, feel free to let me know. Hugs for those who need or want them <3


	3. Chapter 3

It really was some kind of cosmic injustice that Take On Me had been stuck in his head for the last ten minutes. Worse was the fact that it had taken on the melancholy tones of his friends, mourning around a bonfire. A-Ha was meant for drunk karaoke. Not for saying goodbye.  
  
“Nope.” Q shook his head back and forth. “Penny. If you can hear me wherever you are, I’m sorry about torturing you with Taylor Swift. Well…kind of sorry.”  
  
Hmm. There was an idea. Quentin hummed a little to himself before opening his mouth. “But I keep cruising. Can’t stop, won’t stop moving.”  
  
He started bouncing a little while he walked. “It’s like I got this music in my mind saying it’s—gonna—be—all riiiiight!”  
  
There might have been a short dance break. He threw his hands up at the end with a big flourish. Then he turned a corner and a new doorway appeared before him.  
  
“I see how the rest of this is going to go.”  
  
Eyes half-lidded, Q reached out to gently trace his hand across the object in front of him. It looked like any other doorway in suburbia, but he could remember with painful clarity every time he had crossed this threshold. There was only one person who could be inside. He took a deep breath before walking through.  
  
There. Q barely made it a step into the room before he had to stop and simply take in the figure in front of him. Blonde hair fell in a sheet to her shoulders and she stood ramrod straight, arms crossed and staring down the figure in front of her. She was in pink again, a long dress, but her outfit did nothing to conceal the raw power simmering under the skin of Alice Quinn.  
  
“Hey, Vix.” He moved to push the hair back from her face, knowing he wouldn’t be able to. “It’s good to see you again.”  
  
“I really don’t see how you think I’d agree to this after everything that’s happened.”  
  
He turned to look at the woman she was talking to, but she was an unfamiliar lady dressed in librarian grey.   
  
“Look, we all know now that there were a lot of problems with the Library. That’s exactly why we need someone from the outside to come in and help fix them. To give the perspective that we didn’t have before.”  
  
“Sheila, I just lost another person I loved. Look, we may not have covered this in Modesto, but part of the reason I was there in the first place was because I wasn’t exactly drowning in people who care about me. And then the head of the Library gets some insane idea to become a god and—”  
  
She whirled around to the nearest wall and pounded one of her fists into it. Q clenched his fists, helpless as he watched her struggle with little gasps that she couldn’t quite control. “Why would I ever go back to a place that produced a man like him?”  
  
What kind of strange torture was this? He opened his mouth to say something (pointless as it would be) when someone else beat him to it.  
  
“Because you’re Alice Quinn.”  
  
Everyone in the room (including himself) turned to see who had spoken, though he had recognized the voice immediately. Kady shrugged in response to their surprise.

“Door was open. There were rumors on the hedge witch grapevine about librarians hanging around the Quinn household, so I decided to let myself in.”  
  
Sheila didn’t seem to know how to react. “We’re not here to cause any problems. I just needed to talk to Alice.”  
  
“Yeah. I heard.” She strolled over with her hands in the pockets of her jacket, before releasing her left to firmly grip Alice’s shoulder. “And it sounds to me like maybe you all don’t have the best timing. So how about you come back in a couple days. Maybe when we haven’t just literally laid to rest someone your former boss got killed.”  
  
Alice flinched, her shoulders tensing.   
  
“Maybe not the most tactful way to say that,” Quentin told her with a wince.  
  
Regardless, it seemed to work. Sheila agreed to return later and walked out. Kady watched her leave before using the hand on Alice’s shoulder to steer her to the kitchen counter. Once there, she starting rummaging through the cabinets.  
  
“Sorry, but I’m going to need a glass of…something before we continue this conversation.”  
  
Alice tucked her hair behind her ear, the same piece that Q had reached for earlier. “Do we really need to continue this conversation?”  
  
Kady gave her a flat stare. Alice sighed. “Fine. The hard liquor is in the next one over.”  
  
“Perfect.” She poured a generous helping into two glasses and walked back over. “So.”  
  
Alice took a sip of her drink. “So?”  
  
“So. The Library. Sounds like they want you to take over.”  
  
“Yeah. We’ve already covered what I think about that. But I get the feeling you think I should do it anyway.”  
  
“It’s not about what I think.” Kady took a much longer pull of her own drink. “We’ve never been friends, Alice, but the one thing I know about you is that you see something that is fucked up and you try to fix it. Whatever way you can. And the Library?”  
  
“Is super fucked up,” Alice finished with a wry smile. “I guess no one would know that more than you.”  
  
A bitter laugh. “Damn right.”  
  
Alice turned to face her directly. “Did you know why Sheila was here?”  
  
“I guessed. Last time I saw her, Zelda made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in taking over. So when I heard about librarians hanging around your parents’ place, I figured she had someone else in mind.”  
  
“I don’t really want to.”   
  
“I don’t want to either.” Kady set her glass down, a loud clink ringing out into the room. “Sometimes it feels like it could be so easy. I could have let the poison room do its job or maybe even just disappear somewhere and kill time until I can see him again.  
  
“But the hedges’ problems aren’t over just because the ambient is back to normal. There are people with parasites in their bodies. People who can’t cast because of what that sicko did to them. People who maybe don’t have blood worms but who are looking at what happened with the Library and wondering how they’re going to fit into this world after everything has fallen apart.”  
  
Alice was still staring at her glass. Kady tapped on the rim of it. “Hey. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but trust is going to be hard to rebuild between the hedges and the Library. If it ever happens. If I’m going to be a part of it, it would help have someone _I_ trust on the other side.”  
  
At that last line, Alice finally looked up. “Trust?”  
  
“Well, you’ve probably earned it by now.” Kady grinned. It faded a little as she continued. “Look at this way. Between the two of us, we can make it so no one else loses someone to the Library. No one else has to go through what we did.”  
  
Alice took in a long breath. Then, with the tiniest of smiles, she lifted her glass up into the air. “I could drink to that.”

The two girls shared a long, meaningful look. Kady tapped her glass against Alice's and they both finished off their drinks. Q sat watching them until he palm once again began to burn.  
  
“Atta girl.” He said, giving her shoulders a gentle caress as got up. “Show ‘em how it’s done.”  
  
He could see the path again, extending from the kitchen door. With one hand on the door knob, he twisted so that his back was to the exit. “When I’m back, you’re going to tell me about all of the amazing things you’ve done, okay? And I’m going to go around bragging about them to everyone I know!”  
  
He blew her a kiss. Then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Robert Woods to Taylor Swift. I am such a cultural connoisseur, you guys. You can probably guess who's up next, so I hate to have to say this, but I might not be able to get the next chapter up as quickly. I have this little thing called work and while I love writing this story, it's been requiring more emotional labor than I anticipated. Thanks for your patience, and for coming along on this journey with me.


	4. Chapter 4

Quentin fought the urge to walk as slowly as possible. There was another door in the distance. He could see it clearly. Worse, he could already tell which one it was going to be. Here was an entryway he might have recognized even if he had never stepped through it himself.  
  
"Brave, Coldwater," he reminded himself.  
  
The inevitable occurred and soon he arrived at his next destination. Q looked at the large, elaborate entry fit for a castle and sighed. He went in.  
  
At first he thought it was his imagination, but the halls seemed darker. Physically, and yet also atmospherically. It wasn't until he passed a pair of castle guards, dressed in greys and blacks completely unlike the uniform he had once worn, that Q was sure that there was something wrong. Was this not Whitespire after all? He tried to peer into nearby rooms but what he could see seemed to mostly line up with his memories. The path went onward and so did he, until it finally stopped at a corner room that was far from the main sections of the castle.  
  
Quentin raised an eyebrow. "Two doors now, huh? We're getting fancy.”  
  
A predictable silence ensued. He shrugged and went inside. There was a strange moment of vertigo, where he felt like the two people in front of him were blurred, two images superimposed on one another. Then the moment passed and he could see them clearly. Eliot and Margo. Q leaned back against the wood and slowly let out a breath, taking in the sight of the very first friends he had made at Brakebills.  
  
"Hey guys." He smiled, sweet and tender. "It's probably a good thing you can't see me right now. You'd definitely let me have it. For, uh, Quentin-ing things up.”  
  
Margo's irritated tone cut through his sentimentality. "This is really getting on my nerves. Why should I skulk around my own castle with a glamour on instead of taking that bastard by the throat and tossing him out of the nearest window?”  
  
Eliot sat in a chair in front of a vanity and mirror, cane propped up beside him. When he spoke his voice was flat and even. "Well, do you want a list? One, we are currently 300 years in the future with no friends or allies. And no idea how to get back to our own time.  Two, the unkillable pedophile is currently occupying the throne, emphasis on the unkillable part. Three, I am currently playing the part of Tiny Tim and less magically capable than a first year who just passed the entrance exam. And four, the one person who would know enough about this godforsaken place to find a way out of our predicament is. Well. Out of our reach.”  
  
His voice cracked on the last sentence. Margo’s anger, as stunning as a bolt of lightening, faded just as quickly. “El."  
  
He waved a hand dismissively.  
  
"No, look." She moved to sit on the corner of the vanity. "We--I--didn't the best job about talking about the hard stuff before. I promised myself that when we got you back I'd do better. About actually, you know, saying the things we just kind of brush over with on point pop culture references. So.”  
  
Eliot looked down at his hand, idly picking at his fingernails. “So?"  
  
"So, I don't know how much I missed back when I was dealing with my child bride situation. Or what happened while you were stuck in your own head when that dickhole with Peter Pan syndrome was prancing around in your body.   
  
“But I haven't seen you wear a speck of anything except widow black since we've gotten here. You keep staring at the goddamn peach trees in the courtyard every time we go past them and you haven't even said Q's name since the bonfire!”  
  
"Bambi. Please. No more." Eliot's voice was so soft, so pained, that Q couldn't help but push himself forward and wrap his arms around his friend's shoulders.  
  
"I'm here, El. I'm right here." His own voice shook. "Please don't--please don't be so sad.”  
  
Margo had given in to the same instinct on Eliot's other side, reaching down to wrap her arms around him. He took in a long, unsteady breath, allowing the affection and tilting his head to rest against her’s.  
  
"He was my friend too," she said quietly, "But I think he meant something else to you.”  
  
Eliot let out a choked sound. “He _did_ , Bambi.”  
  
It seemed like that was all that he was going to say, but then he continued. "The worse part, the part that will keep me up at night for maybe the rest of my life is that he never knew. He couldn't. Because when I had to chance to tell him, I lied like the coward I am. He died without knowing that I would have chosen him. Any day. In any life.”  
  
Q staggered back, feeling the shock reverberate through his very soul. For a moment, he could see it all so very clearly. The archway, the letter, the peaches. And Eliot. He could feel the dizzying 'what if' that chased through his thoughts as he turned to Eliot and tried to verbalize them ("What if we gave it a shot?") and the harsh crash to the ground as reality came rushing back in.  
  
He sat down on the bed, trying to process everything he had just heard. Looking up, he said, "That was kind of a dick move, El.”  
  
Eliot, like everyone else on this best-hits-of-people-who-gave-a-fuck-about-Quentin-Coldwater tour, didn't respond. Margo had left sometime while Q was lost in his own thoughts, and now the other figure in the room sat for a while longer, one hand propping up his chin while he started into the mirror. Then he shifted and slowly began to stand, reaching out for his cane to provide extra support. Quentin got up to cross the distance to the bed with him, wishing he could reach out and offer a steadying arm. He had expected the burning to return to his hand by now but it had yet to kick in. So when the former High King pulled himself into bed, using the wall to help keep himself propped in a sitting position, Q slid in beside him.  
  
He leaned his head against his companion's shoulder, using his hand to cover one of El's and stroking against the top of it with his thumb. Eliot stared up at the ceiling, gaze unfocused. The room was filled with silence. Q took the opportunity to break it with his own words.  
  
“I never really forgot about it, you know. Who could? What we built at the mosaic, El, it was magic. A kind of magic that was way more than any of the poppers or spells we learned at Brakebills. It was much closer to what I thought magic was, back when I use to dream of Fillory as a kid.”  
  
He looked over to see that Eliot’s eyes had drifted closed. Q reached over with his free hand to poke him in the side. “You’re going to wake up with a sore neck if you sleep like that. Lay down, will you? No? Okay, fine.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  
  
"I don't know what I would have said, if you had come to me and told me you wanted to give things a shot after all. You've probably heard about what happened with Alice by now.  
I care about Alice. Loving her was probably the one constant in every fucked up mess we ended up in. But—"  
  
He turned, taking in the dark curls that framed his friend's sleeping face. They had once slipped through his grip like silk, all while the matching long eyelashes tickled against his face. He could see the scruff across the lower part of his face and chin and remember the way his skin reacted to contact with it, slightly red and tender and yet so worth it. Kissing Eliot Waugh had always been a symphony of sensations.  
  
Quentin made a humming sound, turning to stare up at the ceiling. "But, in the end, it's more than 'fifty years' or 'proof of concept,' isn't it? It's you facing a terrified first year and saying   
'you are not alone here.' It's learning battle magic and breaking into banks and killing gods together. Even when we were on totally different worlds, you were always the person I could come back to. And leave it to me to only realize while I'm dead that I would have liked to be someone for you to come back to, too."  
  
The burn started back up on his palm. He sighed and lifted himself from the bed, only to freeze when a disgruntled sound came from its occupant.  
  
"Stay, Q."  
  
His eyes went wide as he whirled around. "Did you just..."  
  
But no further reactions came. His companion's eyes remained closed as he continued to take in the slow, steady breaths of sleep.  
  
Q sighed. He bent to place a gentle kiss on Eliot's forehead. "Take care of yourself, El. I'll see you soon."  
  
Maybe if he said the words out loud, he could will them into being true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Hoping I did this interaction justice. A thousand thank yous for everyone who's read, commented and left kudos. You have all been so generous with me.


	5. Chapter 5

“Ow.” Quentin shook out his hand, glaring down at the red line that stretched across it. “Is it really necessary to have to deal with pain after I’m already dead?”  
  
He had made it a few steps outside of the castle but everything he had witnessed had lingered, weighing him down until his steps slowed to a halt. Then he had dropped down onto the dirt. He just needed a minute to process. That had been many minutes ago, and apparently his processing time was up.  
  
With a sigh, Q pushed himself up and ambled on. He had never really gotten tired while walking this path, at least in the physical sense. That was the one small benefit of this entire excursion. Still he was beginning to wonder where this would all lead. Who was left to see? Was this really the path back to life, or was he doomed to wander through glimpses of his friends’ lives with less agency than even a ghost?  
  
Ah. There it was, that old familiar spiral. He let out a breath between pursed lips, as if releasing an internal pressure valve. There was another door ahead and he needed to focus. He frowned a bit as he got closer. Here was the most generic design he had come across yet. It felt like it could be any door, anywhere. He had the strangest urge to knock. He ignored it and twisted the doorknob, stepping inside.  
  
Penny-40 sat at his desk, frowning down at some paperwork.   
  
Q let out an embarrassing, high-pitched squeak. Okay, no one had been able to see or hear him so far so it was fine. Everything was fine.  
  
“Quentin?” Penny was looking straight at him, most definitely having heard him.  
  
He slammed back into the door behind him, scrabbling for the doorknob but it slipped and slipped from his grasp and then wouldn’t turn and he realized, _fuck it’s locked_ , and of course Quentin Coldwater would mess up his one second chance before he really even got started.   
  
“Whoa! Hey Quentin—Q, calm down, will you? I’m not going to—”  
  
“I’m not going back,” he said, fast and desperate. “I don’t want to move on. Look Penny, I know you said everything was going to be okay but I saw them— _I saw them_. And maybe they’re going to be okay eventually, but why make them go through it? When I can do something about it? When they’re all so _sad_? We have dealt with enough shit in our lives and it’s absolutely stupid to make them deal with this too.”  
  
"Would you relax, man? Just...sit down.”  
  
After a few more seconds, it was clear he had no where else to go. Quentin acquiesced and sank into the chair in front of Penny's desk. He avoided the Traveler's gaze, running a nervous hand through his hair.  
  
“So."  
  
"So. Uh. So I did mean it. I'm not going to, move on, or whatever. Not yet.”  
  
"Yeah, I kind of got that part." Penny gave him a wry smile and he pulled a thick book out of his drawer. "Leave it to you to mess up my first day on the job. Now you want to tell me how you got here?"

  
Quentin relayed as much of the story as he could, though he omitted some of the more personal details he had witnessed while seeing his friends. Then he frowned as what Penny had said sunk in. "Your first day? You've kind of been down here for a while.”  
  
"It was a promotion," the reply came absently, his companion's focus mainly on the book in front of him. "Now give me a minute. I think I remember something about situations like this in here.”  
  
There was a long stretch of ensuing silence. Q looked around for something to occupy himself but his heart wasn't in it. He really wanted to lean over to see what Penny was reading. He would have killed for a coin to flip through his fingers. It was funny. He had lost the urge to play with around with the things he had used as focuses in the past. It felt like maybe he was growing out of the habit. But now he wondered if his time with the monster had just taken over everything else. Maybe he had lost the will to engage in the things he used to love.  
  
"Here it is."  
  
Q's head shot up. "There actually is something in there about my situation? Really?"  
  
Penny rolled his eyes, for a second coming much closer to the magician he had once known. "You're not that unique, Coldwater. Though apparently you are some sort of quest magnet."  
  
"Give me your tired, your lost, your puzzles in need of solving," he quipped dryly. "What does it say?”  
  
“Look, we don’t start handing out second chances to everyone who walks in here with regrets. It wouldn’t be practical. But things do get thrown off balance every so often and occasionally we let people kind of…slip back. They don’t remember what happened exactly. They just wake up and are told about the near-death experience they just had.”  
  
He frowned. “So, if I do make it back, I won’t remember anything.”  
  
“Well, no. Most people aren’t in the mirror world when they die. Your body disintegrated and it happened in a place where the rules are really different than most other worlds. You’d be less likely to forget because for you it would be a total rebuild—mind, body, and soul.”  
  
There was a certain weight given to those last three words. Quentin tapped his index finger against his bottom lip as he thought. “Mind, body, and soul. You’re saying I have to find a way to get all three of them back.”  
  
“Exactly. There are three trials. One to recover your mind, one to recover your body, and one to recover your shade. Expect for it to be an unpleasant experience.”  
  
“Yeah,” Q sighed, “I figured. Still going to do it.”  
  
“I expected nothing less.” Penny gestured to door opposite of where he had entered. “Luckily, the first part isn’t too complicated. You just walk through there.”  
  
“Okay.” He took in a deep breath, squaring his shoulders as he pushed himself up from the chair. “I can do this. Um. What happens if I don’t succeed?”  
  
“Not…clear. You might just end up back through the first door you went through. Or get trapped as an actual ghost somewhere, living some part of your life over and over. Or just vanish for a thousand years. The details are murky.”

“Great. In that case…”  
  
Penny had stood up to walk him to the door. Quentin dashed around the desk and, before he could realized what was happening, wrapped him up in another hug. His friend let out a small huff of amusement before hugging him back.  
  
“Another one? You’re using up your quota, man.”  
  
“I know.” He squeezed a little tighter. “Thanks. I wish I had been a better friend, Penny. And I wish I could take you back with me.”  
  
“Me too,” came the reply in a soft tone, “But there’s a lot of good I can do down here. Just like there’s a lot of good you can do when you go back.”  
  
He led Quentin to the door with hand between his shoulders, pausing when they were within arms reach of the handle. “Keep an eye on Kady, all right? She’s tough as shit but she still needs people to look out for her. Right now I only have you bozos to make sure that happens.”  
  
Q laughed. “Of course. She might get annoyed enough to use battle magic on me, but I’ll do it anyway.”  
  
The door opened, a gaping blackness the only thing visible beyond it. Penny gave him a final clap on the shoulder before letting go. “Good luck. You can do this.”  
  
“Thanks.” He gave him a small smile before facing the darkness. “I’ll see you again, Penny. I just don’t want it to be too soon.”  
  
He barely heard the reply as he strode forward. “Honestly, Coldwater? I hope you get all the time in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ:
> 
> This chapter is shorter than I originally intended, but this seems like a good place to give my warning for the next three-ish chapters. We're going to delve into some darker stuff, including discussions of Quentin's relationship with his depression and suicidal thoughts. I'm likely overestimating the emotional impact of my writing, but I'd rather be careful about this kind of thing. So, if you have any suspicion that you might be hurt or triggered by reading the next few chapters, please take care of yourself. Skip them or do whatever it is you need. I have a whole mental list of fluffy things I want to write for this story, but it's going to take a little bit to get there.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning, this chapter contains discussion of depression and suicidal thoughts.

The first impression Quentin had was of overwhelming darkness. This proved to be consistent feature of the place he had walked into after stepping out of Penny’s office. At his feet was the vague impression of a solid surface to walk on (was it a floor? a road?) and beyond that there was nothing but unrelenting blackness. He walked as straight as he could, feeling as if the darkness in front of him might be slightly less dense than the rest, as if there might be the promise of eventually encountering light. But this very well could have been a desperate grasp for some sort of direction to follow.   
  
    Q walked.  
      
    And walked.  
  
    And walked.  
  
    There was no way to tell time down here. Had it been days since he left the land of the living or years? Would there be anyone left waiting for him by the time he made it back? Maybe they would have all moved on to bigger and better destinies. Maybe they would barely remember the awkward nerd that desperately clung to all of them, searching for a place that he could finally fit.   
  
    No.  
  
    No, that couldn’t be right. Penny had showed him. He had said that he had been brave. He had saved his friends’ lives and changed them too. He had just watched them grieve and try to carry the burden of what had just happened. He had just told Penny that he wanted to go back and spare them from one more source of sadness in their lives. So why was he doubting everything so quickly?  
  
    It had to be the dark. He was feeling claustrophobic by the way it pressed in on him and yet also terrified by the seeming infinite expanse beyond him. Part of it seemed to have wormed inside of him, a heavy weight he carried in his chest, slowing his steps. The feeling was familiar. It felt like setting three alarms and still staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, unable to pull himself from bed. It felt like watching the cars rush by him while he stood on sidewalks, idly musing on how easy it would be for one of them to just drift a little, slamming into someone who just happen to be standing too close to the edge. Wouldn’t it be better to die young enough to let people mourn his potential, rather than live long enough to prove to be a disappointment? It felt like knowing which buildings in the city were the tallest with the least security and the best views.   
  
    Quentin was just so tired.  
  
    He tried singing again, but the sounds of the song were swallowed by the darkness as soon as they left his lips. Well, that was okay, he was never much of a singer anyway. He tried to retell his favorite stories out loud. Stories about Fillory were still a touchy subject but he reached for every other fantasy or otherwise story that sustained him in the darkest moments of his adolescent years. He pulled out the important speeches, that ones of about enduring and facing the terrible odds with courage and the inescapable conviction of doing the right thing. He moved his hands through the motions of spells designed to form balls of light to float along the castor.  
  
    Nothing.  
  
    The words felt hollow. They fell flat as soon as they hit the suffocating atmosphere around him. He had the memory of the feelings that had arisen in him when he read the words but couldn’t force the feelings themselves to come back. The lights he tried to conjure flickered immediately, snuffed out before they could reach any appreciable brightness.  
  
     “Well at least you’re consistent when it comes to being shitty at magic.”  
  
    Q jumped at the familiar voice. He looked at his hands reflexively, but there was no abyss key clenched between his fingers. He sighed and looked up to meet eyes with his doppelgänger.  
      
    “You again.”  
  
    The other Quentin seemed to be lit up with some sort of internal light source, making him the only thing visible in the unending darkness surrounding them. He smirked and crossed his arms.  
      
    “Yeah, me. Did you really expect to never see me again?”  
  
    He turned away and started walking again. “Apparently whoever is writing my life story is running out of ideas. We’ve done this one already. You didn’t win.”  
  
    “Hmm.” Abyss Quentin kept pace with him easily, unaffected by the sluggishness that he was fighting against. “Didn’t I? Where are you right now, Quentin Coldwater?”  
  
    “I—” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “That’s not the same thing. What I did was to save my friends.”  
  
    “Oh how convenient,” came the reply, fast and venomous. “Little Q, setting out to save the day. Never mind the fact that you were with a Traveler and _real_ magician, one who has the kind of power you couldn’t even imagine touching. No, you were convinced you had to be the hero because you could finally delude yourself into believing you were important.”  
  
    “The mirror was broken. My discipline is under minor mending and I was closer. That’s all it was.”  
  
    “Come on, now. You can lie to yourself but you’re not very good at it. You weren’t exactly the model of hope and mental stability before Everett showed up. Margo went into the desert, liberated a society and brought back the axes that actually saved Eliot. You dropped quesadillas and helped dispose of bodies.”  
  
    “…”  
  
    “And you got everything all wrapped up in the end, didn’t you? Patched things up with Alice. Left Eliot in Margo’s capable hands. Even got physical proof that everyone gave a shit about you.”  
  
    “…”  
  
    The doppelgänger stepped directly into his path, forcing him to come to a halt. “So the real question is, Quentin, why are you fighting this? You’ve gotten everything you asked for that first time you wrote a note as a teenager. Better than you could have ever dreamed. With a fucking musical tribute to top things off.”  
  
    Q stared him down for a long moment. Then he stepped around and kept walking. Abyss Quentin reappeared in front of him, walking backwards as he spoke.  
      
    “This nothingness,” he waved his arm in wide circle, “This infinite emptiness is exactly what you signed up for. So just stop. Stop fighting. Enjoy your eternal rest.”  
  
    Quentin tilted his head. He gave the apparition a long, considering look. Then he took in a bracing breath and opened his mouth. “No.”  
  
    There was a source of light, slowing coming closer. His companion’s voice had worked itself into a shout. They were face-to-face as he walked, barely an inch between their noses.  
  
    “No? No? Going back isn’t a fix, Coldwater. You go back up there and I’ll follow. In every dark corner you come across, in every moment you fuck up, and you _will_ fuck up, I’ll be there. That’s part of the price you pay. You go back to living and you live as you were. Not a god or a king or a goddamned hero.”  
  
     _I go back there and I’m a depressed super nerd._  
  
    Q smiled. He lifted a hand, and very gently, cupped Abyss Quentin’s cheek. “I know.”  
  
    This time, his tormentor stayed in place as he moved forward. “Then why do it?”  
  
     _Remember that spring? At the foot of the mountains in Fillory? Do you think it’s real?_  
  
    He gave the reply over his shoulder as he walked into the bright, bright light. “Because it turns out some of the good parts are real. I know it. I lived them. I can find them again.”  
  
    When Quentin was fully immersed in the light, he let out a gasp of pain at the sudden pain in his chest. It felt a little like a rubber cord that had been tethered back in the darkness had suddenly snapped and he was experiencing the whiplash. The weight was still sitting in his chest, but it was a little more manageable now. Rubbing over his heart with his right hand, he sunk into a cross-legged position. Then he covered his face and cried.  
  
     As the tears fell down his face he felt all the sharp edges of his mind, all the broken pieces carefully stuck back together. He felt the _things break around me_ and the _fuck Fillory for being so disappointing_. He felt the agony of watching his friends pay unbearable prices over and over again, with their freedom, their loved ones, and their lives. He let himself cradle these feelings for a long, long time. Then he wiped his tears and picked himself back up again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be safe, same warnings as previous chapter. This chapter tired out both Q and me but the good news is that we're closer to the part with all the hugs. 
> 
> Apologies if anyone got multiple notifications for this update, I was having issues getting the chapter to actually show up.

The light had led him a bright, white room. It was completely empty save for a single mirror that sat in the center. Quentin looked at the frame and had a moment of unease, feeling the echoes of when he first saw the gateway to The Seam. He didn’t remember the exact details of that particular mirror, but it felt like this one was similar. He felt the urge to creep closer. He also wanted to stay far, far away.  
  
    Eventually he had looked around the room long enough to confirm that there really was nothing else in there. He took small, hesitant steps towards the mirror, doing everything short of literally dragging his feet. When he finally stood in front of the frame and looked in, he let out a small sound of frustration.  
  
    The mirror reflection showed a perfectly empty room. And no matter how much Quentin rocked back and forth or waved his hands at it, he couldn’t see his own reflection within the glass. He formed a frame with his fingers, looking into the mirror through them, but nothing new was revealed. After all of this, he reached with a reluctant hand towards the reflection of the room. His outstretched finger, instead of meeting hard resistance, went right through.  
  
    Q quickly snatched his hand back. He rubbed his fingers together nervously, looking into the room in the reflection. “Oh, um. Okay. I think I get it.”  
      
    He frowned at the mirror. Then with frustrated groan, he shoved the arm back through and rest of himself with it. He had but a moment to take in a room that looked exactly like the one he had just left before the light seemed to flare, becoming so white and overwhelming that he fell to his knees and covered his eyes.  
  
    “Ow! Ow ow owww….” He let out a couple of curses, letting his head curl down into his stomach in an attempt to block the light.  
  
    When the light making it through his eyelids seemed to calm down a bit, he opened them slightly to peer out into the room. Same, empty whiteness. Same mirror, except it sat at the far wall instead of in the center. He took a step towards it but then the world burst into unexpected color.  
  
    For a minute he was so disoriented he could only whip his head back and forth, trying to place the trees and other assorted greenery that had magically sprung up. Then the over saturated colors around him rung a note of familiarity and he realized, _Fillory._ Inescapable Fillory. Quentin sighed. He looked down towards the ground in front of him only to let out a pained shout.  
      
    Alice. Dead. He breaths were coming in faster and faster as he teetered on the edge of a panic attack, taking in the sight that haunted his nightmares for so long after the defeat of the Beast. The blank eyes, her limbs askew and the way her red patterned dress had been dirtied by the forest floor.  
      
    “No,” he said, his voice tiny and weak, and shoved himself backwards.  
  
    Almost immediately he was back in the white room. A pained sob escaped him as he leaned back on his arms, attempting to steady his breathing. He had landed in a corner of the room that was furthest from the mirror. Q pushed himself back up and tried again to step towards the mirror, only for it abruptly disappear from view.  
      
    Fillory, again, of course, but then he felt a rush of emotion as he recognized the cottage and the mosaic, all laid out in front of him. Quentin looked towards its edge and…and…oh, _Eliot, Eliot_ , the most vibrant person he had ever known laying so so still, wrapped in their favorite quilt and just waiting for—he whipped around, rubbing franticly at the tears streaming from his face.  
  
    The room. The mirror. Both reappeared even as Q pounded a fist against the wall, hand shaking. “How am I supposed to…”  
  
    He stepped forward again, feeling lost about any other options. This time he saw his father, laid out for the funeral he never attended. A pained noise escaped his throat but he couldn’t turn away this time. Quentin stretched out a hand towards him, stumbling forward as he thought about lost chances at saying goodbye. So of course the image disappeared as soon as he was within reach. He rubbed at his eyes fiercely. Then he looked at the mirror and realized it was closer than it had been before.  
  
    “Oh,” said Quentin, “I see.”  
  
    He took a step and—  
      
    —frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch as The Beast casually ripped out Dean Fogg’s eyes. Feeling the sharp, painful helplessness as the figure turned to him and knew his name and still he couldn’t move—  
  
    and then another step and—  
      
    —the Beast, again, hurting his friends. Margo and Eliot unconscious and thrown against bookshelves and Penny’s hands and again he is stuck watching, unable to do anything—  
  
    and then one more—  
  
    —The Monster, again and again, dragging him along as he disposed of the people he didn’t find useful, easily, with simple gestures, while Quentin scrambled to appease, to distract while the images are burned into his mind—  
  
    until finally, the frame was once again within reach. Looking into the glass, he could almost see a distortion in the reflection, an outline where he should be visible. It was more than he had before. He went through.  
  
    Julia’s screams echoed in the room around him. Quentin jumped to his feet, looking around despite knowing there would be nothing to see.  
  
    “Q! Q, please you can’t keep doing this! You’re only hurting us. You’re only hurting yourself. Please—”  
  
    He clamped his hands over his ears. It didn’t particularly help. Margo’s voice joined in as he took another step forward.  
  
    “Would you just get your tits together and listen to someone else for once in your goddamn life. You’re only making things worse—”  
  
    Then Alice.  
  
    “If you ever truly loved me then you would know, Quentin, that this can’t go on—”  
      
    Penny joined the party next.  
  
    “Look, I didn’t say anything earlier but do you really think I’m not going to get in trouble for letting you slip back into the world of the living? If you could maybe stop and think for a minute—”  
  
    Then.  
  
    Eliot, in that same soft tone he had used, once upon a time, as he was being held back from trying to crawl with one arm towards Alice’s body. “Q, you have to stop. You have to stop.”  
  
    Quentin was panting a little as he clutched the mirror frame. His outline had become a shadow, similarly bent over and shaking slightly with each breath.  
  
    “Sorry,” he said to the cacophony of his friends’ voices. “Except, I guess, not really.”      
      
    There was silence when he passed through the mirror this time, and he let himself sit for a minute to enjoy it. Part of him was waiting to see what would be thrown at him next, but so long as he remained still, the room seemed to do the same. It was peaceful. He let everything from the previous treks to the mirror slide from his mind and stood, muscles tensed in anticipation as he took his first step.  
  
    It took a moment, but when realization hit, Quentin let a hand cover his mouth as he let out a small “Oh.”  
  
    The room smelled like The Cottage when cooler weather prevailed, the fireplace providing a rich, smoky base to the various fruity and spice filled scents wafting from concoctions being poured at the bar. Quentin remembered coming back from classes one day only to have Margo yank him onto a couch by his collar, demanding he break the tie in some random argument about Welters games. Eliot was standing at the bar, throwing out antagonizing comments about how the game was purposely designed to be boring, before handing them both a drink and stretching out artistically on the nearest couch. Quentin laughed at them both as he sat near the fire and was startled by the sudden sensation of coming home, of fitting into a space where he could belong.  
  
     _Stay_ , the room seemed to say, _stay where you can always feel exactly like you did then_.  
  
    He wanted it. But that home was built by the people in his memories, and they were out in the living world, waiting for him. Or at least they would be if they knew he was coming.  
  
    Next came the scent of saltwater, of the open sea as he moved back and forth on the deck of the Muntjac. Q smiled a little. Despite the disappointment of setting off on his boat quest by himself (plus poor Benedict) and the absolute awfulness of dealing with the Abyss key, he still remembered the initial part of that trip fondly. For a little while he had truly felt open and happy and free.  
  
     _You could have that again_ , whispered the room, _everything from now on could be as uncomplicated as sitting on a boat with the ocean spread out in front of you_.  
  
    “Can’t,” he said out loud, “I’m owed one boat quest with someone other than a dragon-obsessed liar and I intend to collect.”  
      
    He really shouldn’t have been surprised by the last scent. Quentin took in a deep breath and shook his head. “Fucking peaches.”  
  
    Peaches and plums. Two voices he loved, trading banter in a low harmony in the background. Chalk dust kicked up by small feet during a rambunctious game of hide and seek. The beauty of all life with all of the included emotions and memories.  
  
    “Low blow,” he said, pushing both hands back through his hair. He stopped and considered this surroundings for a moment. “But, you know, maybe El was right. Maybe a bunch of borrowed memories doesn’t count as proof of concept.”  
  
    He had arrived at the mirror again. This time the shadow seemed more distinct, with the hint of eyes and a mouth and other such features. “Maybe it’s about not actually knowing how things will turn out. And sometimes waking up a little scared and unsure about what will happen but choosing to be with that person anyway.”  
  
    “Man,” he crossed his arms and stared at his shadow reflection. “It’s really disappointing that no one’s around to hear all this after death wisdom. No wonder Gandalf hung out with hobbits. Being wise at yourself is just kind of weird.”  
  
    And through the mirror again he went. This time he was gifted with the taste of acid and half digested pills, pulled from memories of medications that hadn’t sat well with his system. He ended up dry heaving a couple of times before he could move past that one. Then came the unpleasantness of swallowing down his emotions from the time they were all learning battle magic. Lastly, weirdly enough, was actually reliving the tasteless that all food had acquired in those last days with the Monster.  
  
    “Having a body kind of sucks,” he told the mirror. “But better than the alternative.”  
  
    He could mostly see himself in the glass now, though the reflection was still kind of translucent. Penny hadn’t been kidding about this process being unpleasant.  
  
    “Once more unto the breach,” he announced, thrusting an imaginary sword as he stepped through.  
      
    An abrupt pain tore through his left shoulder. Quentin dropped to the floor, large gasps of pain escaping him. His shoulder was still visible but this pain was unmistakeable, the sharp, searing sensation that came with getting caught with a blast during the final battle with the Beast.  
  
    “Fuck,” he let out, “I forgot how much this fucking hurt.”  
  
    He wanted to stand, should have been able to stand, but all attempts sent the pain spiking up to unbearable thresholds. Q gritted his teeth and crawled, resigned to a slow, agonizing process in order to make it back to the mirror. One arm was out of commission thanks to the phantom pain and so he dragged himself forward with his still-working arm, using his feet to push against the ground and propel himself forward. Each jerky movement sent new jolts of pain and along the way he revisited top moments such as being blasted back by his own battle magic, being thrown into a dresser courtesy of the Monster, and the feeling of hands that should have been friendly and kind, perverted into cutting off his supply of air as they closed around his throat.  
  
    There was no way to tell time in that room, no way to tell any sort of time since he had started on this journey back to the land of the living, but it felt as if hours had passed by the time he was back at the mirror. Exhaustion had made its way to every last cell within him. Quentin pushed up from the floor just enough in order see himself fully reflected, Quentin Makepeace Coldwater, whole and unfiltered. His reflection grinned back at him as he used the last of his strength to dive headfirst into the frame.  
  
    He fell through darkness. Immediately, he felt that something was wrong and the burning from his shoulder spread to the rest of him, intensifying as it spread. Q screamed and screamed. He felt as if something essential had been torn from him. He was still screaming as he made contact with a hard surface and it took a moment for him to gain control enough to stop. As soon as he did, however, a heavy wall within him fell down and cut off the stream of emotions that had been so present only moments prior. It felt as if a vacuum taken up residence in his chest.  
  
    “ _Quentin_?”  
  
    He looked up and realized he was in some sort of office. Alice sat behind a wooden desk that had a placard stating _The Boss_. She was looking at him as if she’d seen a ghost, which considering the circumstances, wasn’t unreasonable. He tried to summon the correct reaction to dropping on your (ex?) girlfriend after dying, but his entire focus seemed to be taken up by two thoughts.  
  
    Something within him was missing.  
  
    He needed to go find it.  
  
    Q met her gaze and said, “I think I messed up the last trial.”  
  
    Then he collapsed face first onto the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! Apologies, I've been occupied for a while and this chapter was slower going than I expected. I'm heading into another busy period but I promise to keep working on this story when I can!

Quentin woke from his rather dramatic face plant a few minutes later. Or, at least, he hoped it was only a few minutes as he was in the same exact position as when he had collapsed. A slight draft made it obvious that he was completely naked. He sat up, letting out a small groan as his aching joints and limbs announced themselves. As he did so, he realized that a series of chalk symbols had been drawn around him, forming a circle. Looking closer, they seemed to be mostly Greek, though his pounding head made it difficult to focus.  
  
    A clattering sound from a few feet away distracted him from further investigation. He looked up to see Alice rummaging in her desk drawer for something. She was wearing a cardigan and skirt set in the typical Library grey, her blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. At one point she paused to form the tut to evaluate for signs of magic, both index fingers and thumbs coming together to form a frame to gaze through, but she only frowned at what she saw and went back to the drawer. Then she pulled out a shard of colored glass and looked at him again. This didn’t seem satisfy her either but she did finally seem to realize he was awake. She walked back over to his circle.  
  
    Quentin felt…well the problem seemed to be more of what he wasn’t feeling. Alice was standing right in front of him. Their relationship had led him through many varieties of emotions: desperate lovesickness, overbearing guilt, a sharp sort of anger and betrayal as well as a soft, slow sweetness that they had only managed a couple of times before the drama of their lives  would catch up. He would have expected experiencing any one of those upon seeing her. Instead, what he got was a feeling of slight annoyance that he was probably trapped in whatever ward she had drawn around him.  
  
    “Well,” Alice said, “You’re not an illusion. Or a ghost or a golem or someone wearing an illusion. As far as I can tell, you are Quentin Coldwater, except…”  
  
    Her voice had cracked on the last word and she pressed her lips together tightly. She turned her head and reached up under her glasses to rub at her eyes with a thumb and index finger. Quentin continued to feel as if his body was occupied by a cold vacuum, the usual messy tangle of emotions either missing or distant. Still, this seemed like a moment where he should try to comfort her. He reached with his right hand only to meet an invisible wall at the edge of the ward circle.  
  
    “It’s me,” he said, and his voice sounded like he hadn’t had anything to drink for days. “Quentin. I’m Quentin, I mean.”  
  
    It was probably not the most eloquent first sentence.  
  
    Alice frowned as she looked at his hand, unable to extend further as he pressed it against the barrier. She made no motion to remove whatever was keeping him trapped.  
  
    “And how am I supposed know that for sure?”  
  
    Now he felt the annoyance increase with a sharp spike, though his voice remained fairly flat. “I’d think you of all people, Alice, would find a way to figure that out. Unless you’re planning to keep me here as some sort of bizarre office decoration.”  
  
    She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re not doing a great job of convincing me that you’re really Quentin right now.”  
  
    He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “No? And you came back exactly the same when you were brought back from being a niffin?”  
      
    “You’re hardly being fair here.” She started to pace back and forth. “You can’t just appear in my office after six weeks of everyone thinking you were dead. After pulling that stupid hero move in the mirror world and _forcing me to watch you die_. So sorry I’m having a little trouble believing that it would be this easy to get you back.”  
  
    Quentin folded himself into a cross-legged position on the floor. He raised an eyebrow. “Can you get me some clothes if we’re going to have this conversation? This place is kind of chilly.”  
  
    Alice waved one hand in a slightly dismissive gesture, still focused on her pacing. Then she took a moment to look at him, huddled on the floor and shivering slightly, and her expression softened. She strode out of the room before returning with underwear, a shirt, and pants, all in the same grey as her outfit.   
      
    “It wasn’t actually easy,” Q said, turning his back to her and pulling on the clothing. “At least not for me.”  
  
    As he threaded his arms through the sleeves of the shirt, the sensation felt different. He paused, head tilted in thought, before he realized that his wooden shoulder had returned to normal human skin, muscle, and bone. A quick twist to try and peer at his back confirmed that he could no longer see any hint of his cacodemon tattoo. Huh. It seemed like his body had returned as a blank slate.  
  
    When he was covered he turned and went back sitting on the floor. He kept feeling a nagging demand to keep standing, to try and break free of the ward encasing him and go chasing after that mysterious something that he could still feel was missing. _Go_ , whispered a voice inside of him, _if she wasn’t going to help, if she was going to keep him caged like an animal then why not live down to her expectations. Break free and if someone got hurt in the process, well then that was the price to pay for getting between him and_ —Quentin attempted to shake the thought out of his head. The voice was wrong. He knew it objectively and yet the part of him that felt it, the affection, the horror at hurting someone he loved, remained missing. Maybe Alice was right. Maybe some essential part of him had been left behind in the underworld.  
  
    With that last thought, Q straightened with a bolt of realization. “The last trial!” He tapped his fingers against the floor, thoughts racing. “You might not be wrong. I might actually not be the Quentin you know because I _fucked up the last trial._ I need your help, Alice. I don’t know what they might do if I did mess everything up but they might make me do it all again. Or drag me down and make me stay dead. Penny said I could vanish for a thousand years, which is not on my to-do list.”  
  
    He braced both hands against the floor and peered up at her. “Alice, please.”  
  
    Alice held up both hands, attempted to stem the tidal stream of words streaming out of him. She watched him for a second, chewing on her bottom lip. Then she sank down to sit on the floor. “Look, I’m sorry. Seeing you alive was a pretty big shock and I think I ended up skipping a few steps. Q, how exactly are you here? What happened?”  
  
    Quentin winced, thinking of all the deeply personal things the underworld had dragged him through on his journey. He took a deep breath before he launched into the story. While he talked, he did his best to soften the edges of what he was saying without leaving out anything that might be important. Alice had originally grabbed a notebook, filling it with fast scribbles as she listened. As he neared the end, however, her pace had slowed as she spent more time looking at him instead. By the time he was speaking about the repetitive, infinite time in the room with the mirror, she had abandoned any writing completely. He fidgeted nervously under her undivided attention, looking down at his fingers as he twisted them together as an excuse not to meet her gaze.  
  
    “…and then I went through again and I thought there would be some other, um, symbolic trial to go through before I could finally get back. But I ended up here and…”  
  
    He trailed off, unable to make himself look up at her. There was several seconds of silence. Then he let out an “oof,” hands falling back to brace against the floor as he was hit with what felt more like a tackle than a hug. Apparently the ward was a one-way thing. Quentin could feel Alice’s body shaking as she squeezed the air out of him. He brought one hand forward again, awkwardly patting her on the back.  
      
    When Alice finally leaned away she took in a deep, shaky breath. Then her expression settled into determination. She wiped away her tears in quick, efficient movements and settled into a more comfortable posture. “Okay, let’s assume that I believe you and you really are Quentin.”  
  
    He gave the chalk symbols they were sitting on a pointed look. “Well I would hope so.”  
  
    “Not productive, Q,” she said, unfazed by his snark. “How do you know you aren’t going through the last trial right now?”  
  
    He started at her. “What.”  
      
    “You said that you feel like something is missing and you need to find it. Penny said that you’d undergo trials to rebuild different parts of you—mind, body and soul. If the first two were to rebuild your mind and body, then…”  
  
    “Are you saying I…don’t have my shade right now?” He brought a hand to his chest, as if he could somehow feel what was lacking within him.    
  
    “Do you feel like that’s right?”  
  
    “I don’t know. I haven’t really been without my soul before.” He frowned. “Well, except. Quentin-23 came back without his and turned into The Beast. I feel like that could be a little concerning.”  
  
    He could feel Alice’s gaze on him, carefully assessing and flickering down once to look at the ward on the floor. Then she shook her head. “You’re not Quentin-23 any more than I’m Alice-23. Different circumstances. We should be careful but you haven’t exactly tried to kill anyone since you’ve gotten here.”  
  
    There was a second where he wanted to point out that he hadn’t really had the opportunity to hurt anyone yet. He wasn’t sure if it was self-preservation or the potential lack of a soul that kept his mouth shut. Alice a look on her face that meant she was processing things on a level that the rest of them could never keep up with. He waited, watching. Eventually she nodded to herself as if she had come to a decision.   
  
     “I have some experience on being shadeless thanks to what’s left of my niffin memories. But there’s one more person who would know enough to be helpful.” She gave him a hesitant smile before continuing. “And I don’t think I’d hear the end of it if I didn’t get her here as soon as possible.”  
  
     ***  
  
    Julia Wicker burst onto the scene with far more energy and presence than seemed reasonable, given how little space she physically took up. Quentin had been moved to a solitary, white-walled room which he was trying not to think of as a holding cell. It was a pretty bleak setting but his oldest friend seemed to bring with her a swirl of warmth and color. For a second, he even felt as if the nagging emptiness within him had eased a little.  
  
    As soon as she was within range she pounced on him, sending him staggering back a few steps with the force of her hug. He could see Alice and Penny-23 hovering in the doorway, clearly trying to give them some space. Penny stood with his arms crossed and jaw tensed, very clearly ready to jump into action at any moment. Quentin couldn’t spare more thought about it, however, because there was a rapidly growing wet spot on his shirt, right on his shoulder where Julia had buried her face. He realized with growing horror that her entire body was shaking with what had to be tears. Q reached up to awkwardly wrap his arms around her, defaulting to the back patting he had used with Alice earlier.   
  
    There was an uncomfortable stretch of silence. He tried to reason out the correct way to react. Like when he first saw Alice, he had an idea of what should happen, but he was lacking his usual knee-jerk emotional responses. Once upon a time he had struggled so much trouble trying to control them. He felt like some sort of alien intruder who was using his own memories to try and figure out how to be human. Honestly, he hadn’t been doing great at that whole being a normal human thing even before his recent death.  
  
    Eventually Julia recovered enough to pull back with a final sniffle, reaching up to wipe away any remaining tears on her face. She grinned up at him, her face lined with tenderness and nostalgia. “Hey Q.”  
  
    “Uh, hi.” He managed a small smile for her. “Good to see you.”  
  
    Alice cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but we need your input, Julia. There was a little complication with Q’s, um, return.”  
  
    Penny-23 straightened, eyes narrowing. “What did you do?”  
  
    “What makes you—oh, well considering your history I guess…” She sighed and turned to Quentin. “Will you just tell them what happened?”  
  
    He reluctantly repeated the story. It was more abbreviated than the one he had told Alice, given the presence of 23 in the background. This seemed prudent, given that he just seemed to get more tense with every word. When he reached the discussion with Alice in her office, he seemed to meet a breaking point.  
  
    “Wait a minute.” He took several steps forward, arm reaching as if he wanted to pull Julia away. Julia, being Julia, tilted her chin up and gripped Quentin’s arm harder. “You can’t tell me you’re just—you know exactly what happened when someone pulled back a shadeless version of him in my timeline. It ends badly. For all of us. Are we just going to ignore that?”  
  
    “We’re not ignoring anything,” said Alice. “The Library is a perfectly secure location and—“  
  
    “You’re not telling me you’re planning to keep him here” Julia turned to Alice, shaking her head. “Not after everything we just went through with the Library. I can’t believe you think it’s a good idea to keep him locked up like some kind of prisoner!”  
  
    “I’m not saying that! There’s a difference between—”  
  
    Q cleared his throat and raised his index finger to pause the flow of words. “Can I say something?”  
  
    The room went quiet. He looked at Alice. “Can I get a glass of wine?”  
  
    She crossed her arms. “Seriously?”  
  
    “Well,” said Julia, a wry smile tugging at her lips. “Considering everything he’s been through, it’s probably the least we could do.”  
  
    Alice let out a sigh and relaxed her arm. “Fine. Give me a minute.”  
  
    She probably wouldn’t have given in so easily without the reminder of his recent non-living status. Quentin reflected on how a person without scruples might take advantage of this kind of thing. As she walked away, Julia tugged on his arm.  
  
    “Since I argued for your wine, will you talk to me about what happened down there later? The non-SparkNotes version?”  
  
    He shrugged. “Okay.”  
  
    Penny-23 remained in the background, seeming as if he couldn’t decide between watching them like a hawk or pointedly looking away. It was awkward. Q debated saying something to him but Alice returned before he could settle on what to say.   
  
    He was definitely rusty, but his tutting became smoother as physical memory kicked in. “We are obviously not going to get anywhere until everyone is satisfied that I’m not going to go on some serial killing spree as soon as I get the chance.”   
  
    Both Alice and Julia suddenly shifted where they were standing, looking uncomfortable. Alice, his fellow Physical Kid, recovered first when she recognized the sequence. She let out a groan.  
  
    “Not that stupid party trick again.”  
  
    “I don’t exactly have any truth serum on me. Besides, at least you know it works.”  
  
     For a moment, it was as if he was sitting on the floor of the Cottage again, Eliot pressed up against him and manipulating his fingers into the right forms. He was warm and steady and Quentin tried not to lean in too obviously. Margo was stretched out along Eliot’s other side, making up ridiculous predictions to how he would answer the questions. Q’s hands trembled with the memory but he managed to rally and continue on.   
  
    Julia leaned in, clearing noting the different poppers he was using. “Q, what are you doing?”  
  
    Alice answered for him. “It’s the in vino veritas spell. They mostly used it during parties at Brakebills. Grown up truth or dare type games. It’s not often useful outside of that because the person has to willingly drink the wine themselves.”  
      
    Julia looked a little wistful at her response. In the meantime, he had finished the spell and sat back on the bed in the room, glass of wine cradled in his lap.   
  
    “Okay, after I drink this you can ask me three questions and I can’t lie while answering them. It wears off after that.”  
  
    Penny-23 raised an eyebrow. “There are plenty of ways avoid telling the whole truth even if you don’t out right lie.”  
  
    “Do you have any other ideas right now?” Quentin snapped back. When he didn’t get a response he shrugged and downed the wine.  
  
    At first the others just awkwardly looked at each other. Then Alice stepped forward and locked gazes with him.  
  
    “Who are you?”  
  
    “Ah, going for the philosophical questions first.” He paused but no one seemed amused. “Fine. Quentin Coldwater, technically from the 40th timeline. Magician. I don’t think I’m a king of Fillory anymore but I’m technically still a Brakebills student. Columbia graduate, full on geek-slash-nerd, etc.”  
  
    Julia was definitely smiling now. She spoke up next.  
  
    “What are you going to do once we let you out of this room?”  
  
    “I am going to go out and find my shade, if that’s what’s wrong with me, and make sure that someone doesn’t show up to drag me back to the underworld. As a bonus, I’m going to get out of the place that literally stole magic after everything we went through to get it back and also produced the man who was the reason I was in the underworld in the first place.”  
  
    He had surprised himself with that last bit. Everyone else seemed affected at well, given their sudden inability to look at him. Penny recovered first and asked the last question.   
  
    “Are you going to hurt anyone if we let you get out of here?”  
  
    He frowned. “Answering that gets tricky with in vino veritas.” He hold up both hands defensively, heading off any interruptions. “I can say I have no intention of hurting anyone, physically or otherwise. But I can’t predict the future or how people react to what I do. As a group, we tend to try to solve problems only to land ourselves with bigger ones.”  
  
    “Not the most reassuring answer, dude,” said Penny.  
  
    “It was the honest one.” He could feel the sensation of popping bubbles against his tongue, a sign that the spell was completed. Q scooted backwards on the bed, crossing his legs and waiting for judgement to be passed.  
  
    Julia came to sit beside him, an arm wrapped around his shoulders. She looked at Alice as she spoke. “Neither of us are really in the position to make judgements, are we? If we take him back to Kady’s then at least he’s going to be around people who can catch on if something seems wrong.”  
      
    Alice’s shoulders slumped and her posture loosened. “I know. You and Penny should go ahead and fill her in. We probably shouldn’t just show up with a supposedly dead man at her door. I’ll bring Q in a couple of minutes.”  
  
    Julia gave him one last hug, arms tight enough around him that he could barely breath. Then she and Penny departed via the traveller express and he was left with Alice and the silence between them. Quentin moved to stand up but the edges of his vision became blurry and he quickly sat back down.  
  
    “I think I might need to sit for a couple of minutes,” he said. “Turns out shotgunning wine in a brand new body makes it a little more effective than I expected.”  
  
    She gave him a restrained smile. “To be fair, I think the alcohol is more potent here. I don’t know if it’s magic or if the fact that they pull it from somewhere that’s not Earth or Fillory.”  
  
    She stepped out and returned with a glass of water, settling down on the bed next to him as she handed it over.   
  
    “You…you really don’t like it here, do you?” Alice said, staring straight ahead as she spoke.   
  
    Quentin took a sip of the water before answering. “If someone had told me about a place filled with books about everything in existence before Brakebills, I probably would have never wanted to leave. But I think it’s going to be long time before I look at this place and not think of all the terrible things that happened because of it.”  
  
    “I started out thinking the same thing,” she said quietly. “I know you told me that you saw me talking with Sheila and Kady when you were down there. Do you think you would ever change your mind?”  
  
    “I…I’m not angry about what happened anymore, Alice,” he replied, running a finger around the rim of the glass. “Granted, I’m not feeling a lot of things right now. I know you had your reasons for not being part of the quest in the beginning. But to go through everything just to forget who I was and to wonder if it all was even worth it…I look at this place and all I can feel is…loss. Or maybe lost. I don’t know.”  
  
    She took in a deep breath before taking the glass and placing it on a side table. “Okay. I can’t blame you for feeling like that. We should maybe talk about that later, though, after we get you to Kady’s.”  
  
    Quentin stood and followed her out. If there was a right thing to say in this situation, he definitely hadn’t said it. He mulled on what he could have said instead until they arrived at the apartment, only for the door to swing open before they could even knock.  
  
    “Coldwater.” Kady’s eyes were wide and there was a moment where it seemed like her voice was rough with some excess of emotion. Then she seemed to recover and grinned at him, winding one arm around his shoulders and reeling him in. “It’s good to see you, you dork. We should probably talk about not choosing the stupidest option when trying to fight someone stronger than you but we have a bit of a situation here.”  
  
    He had a pretty good guess of what the situation might involve when they came into the living room and were met by the sight of Josh and Fen, sitting on the couch and looking a little worse for wear. Fen instinctively whipped out some daggers at the sounds of their footsteps, relaxing only when she saw who had come in. Julia and Penny-23 stood by the windows, the former sharing a meaningful look with Alice over his shoulder.  
  
    “Q,” said Julia, “I think we need you to tell us again everything you remember about seeing Eliot and Margo when you were in the underworld. Apparently something is rotten in the state of Fillory.”

**Author's Note:**

> Much love to everyone who watched the finale and had their hearts ripped out.


End file.
